Reading

http://www.accessola.org/ola_prod/Documents/OLA/issues/Reading-for-Joy.pdf

According to EQAO, Ontario students are scoring better on reading tests but “like reading less.” I understand how the kids feel. When I was assigned two chapters of a book, I finished what was necessary to answer the questions and didn’t venture any further than that. Sometimes I spent more time looking up credible book summaries online than I did reading the actual book, because I hated the books they chose. I don’t think I was old enough to appreciate the books and articles they were getting me to read. How do you instil a love of reading in children when you give them boring dry shit to read?

As a kid I had three things that I was massively obsessed with: space, dinosaurs, and ancient Egyptians. Every time I went to the library, I would borrow books on these subjects, especially those Eyewitness books that are absolutely amazing. They’re honestly the best things you can get a kid to read if they’re interested in a subject. I read about cool space stuff all the time, like comets, and meteors, and asteroids. Things that would obliterate everything in its way. I read about what would happen if we tried landing on these planets, how Jupiter would just crush us like a can, or an even cooler thought was how Saturn would be able to float in water because it was less dense. Can you imagine how excited I got when I learned that our next unit was going to be on space? You know what we ended up learning about? The phases of the moon! I am a 10 year old boy that dreams of life outside of our solar system, and I’m stuck learning about how the Earth casts shadows on the moon.

I don’t remember liking the dinosaur unit in school either. They focused a lot on the fossils and palaeontology aspect of it, which just saps the fun out of the subject. It’s interesting to me now, but was this curriculum designed with children in mind? Do they think they’re going to enjoy this stuff or are they just doing this so they can test the kids? I’m not surprised that kids don’t like reading. They’ve distilled the fun out of it and turned it into some straight information processing activity. Here, read this chapter and pick out some details for me in this fill in the blanks sheet. I can’t think of a worse way to read a book.

Irreversible

Note: Before you read on, there are a ton of spoilers in this post. If you plan on watching the movie and don’t want anything spoiled for you, come back after watching it. I’ll quickly say that it’s a good movie, just a very challenging one to watch.

I wanted to watch Irréversible last year, but after experiencing several messed up movies, I put this one on hold. My Internet connection went down at around 2am last night so rather than sleep (the smart choice) I decided to watch the movie. Not sure what put me in the mood to watch it, but I might as well get it over with.

Some tidbits:

Director: Gaspar Noé
Why is it messed up? The two infamous scenes in the movie are the rape scene, and the murder scene. I think the best way to describe the two scenes is that they are unrelenting. The movie also employs several techniques to unnerve the viewers and make them feel sick, including playing a low frequency sound for the first 30 minutes of the movie to induce nausea in the viewers.
How did you hear about it? I think if you spend enough time in forums, someone will mention this film as one of the movies they’ll never be able to watch again. My friend from my first year English class told me about the film when I mentioned I was scarred for life after watching Ichi the Killer. He told me if I really wanted to stain my soul, I should give this movie a shot. Well, here I am, seven years later.

Running Commentary

- The camera angles are really messed up and disorienting. Why would someone make a film that makes you feel that uncomfortable?
- Topic of discussion to begin the film? Incest. Followed by a scene outside a gay nightclub called “The Rectum.” I don’t know why anyone would name a club this.
- The story is told in reverse chronological order btw.
- Imagine spinning in circles while looking up. This is what the camera is always doing. It’s like a movie shot inside a teacup ride.
- Ok, I don’t think it’s low frequency at all. It’s this weird noise that keeps playing, really unsettling. I’m not sick, but if they turn it down and keep playing it throughout the film it’d be really unfair. I hope that’s not the case.
- What it sounds like is a siren just zipping by you constantly. It’s the doppler effect over, and over again. UuuuuuUUUuuuUUUuu.
- Oh God, an arm gets broken, I can’t take this.
- Guy gets beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. Disgusting. You hear the wet crunch of a skull being crushed. And unfortunately you see it too. And that fucking sound is still there, only now there’s a strong drum beat to it too.
- Finally, the sound stopped, but the camera won’t stay still or look straight.
- Vincent Cassel is menacing. Great actor.
- Of all the times the camera is still, it’s during the rape scene.
- This scene is too fucking long. If you mention that someone was raped, then beaten into a coma, is it really necessary to show the whole sequence of someone getting raped and beaten into a coma?
- The camera stays still throughout the scene, forcing you to watch this poor woman endure a horrific attack. The camera is essentially doing this to you.
- I’m glad the movie really slows down after this scene.
- From here, it’s just really depressing because it delves more into the lives that get totally ruined at the start.
- The hardest part is getting past the first hour of the movie. It’s quite good after the rape scene.
- The story unfolds like a news story. You get the worst bits first, and as time goes, you fill in more details that gives the story much more gravity.
- Points for using Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.

I enjoyed the last half hour of the movie. It’s such a different, relaxing pace than the first hour. The camera’s steadier, there’s less frantic dialogue, and because of the way the story is told, it makes much more sense near the end of the film than it did in the beginning. Love the creative way the story unfolds, just check out this sequence:

- Alex is raped in an underground passageway.
- Later on in the movie (but, chronologically earlier in the story’s timeline), she talks about a book she’s reading that essentially says dreams can sometimes be premonitory.
- Earlier that day, we see Alex waking up and talking about a dream she had, a bizarre one where she’s in a red tunnel and it breaks in half. She’s not sure what it means. We later see her reading that book.

A lot of the things that people allude to in the story are also revealed later on as it looks into their past more, which would probably make repeat viewings of the movie quite rewarding. If only it wasn’t so damn uncomfortable to sit through.

Weird Dreams I’ve Had

In the earliest nightmare that I can remember, I was sitting at the edge of a fountain when I fell in. It became terrifying when I realized I couldn’t swim and was sinking deeper into the water, away from my parents who I could still see. I wonder what happens when you have dreams of drowning. Do you have trouble breathing in real life as well? I’ve dreamt of falling, and even felt my stomach lurch as I plummeted down in my dreams. Did my arms flail as much as I slept? I wonder if I screamed.

The abstract dreams were the weirdest I’ve had. I’ve definitely have strange dreams before, but the abstract ones felt as if I was experiencing life on a sub-atomic level. I saw a dot, then two, then they vibrated and things started looking like television static. It made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, but then I didn’t know what to make of it. The static had voices, millions of them, and they all talked at the same time. You can hear snippets, not enough to understand what’s going on, but enough to disorient you. The sound would crescendo with the level of chaos in my dreams until it got incredibly loud and busy where I was. Those were the worst, because I always woke up feeling overwhelmed.

Lately, I’ve done a lot of running in my dreams. The other day I dreamt that, in a confrontation with someone, I decided to fold them in half and dump them in the trash can. I just pressed back on his forehead, until the back of his head touched his heels, then I just stuffed him in the closest bin I could find. He fit remarkably well, but there were people watching. I asked them if they saw anything, *wink wink nudge nudge* and they all looked at me like I was some idiot and basically said “yeah, you just broke someone’s back and stuffed him in the trash.” Fuck those people, so I had to leave. Now that I think about it, it seems like that scene in Ichi the Killer when that police officer just suddenly gets all muscular and twists someone into a pretzel. I haven’t watched that movie in years.

Sorry, it’s 5:18am, this is me rambling.

“Accomplishments”

Throughout the year I’ve been keeping track of the things I’ve read, watched, and the video games I’ve played (and finished). I’ve always claimed to watch a lot of movies and read a lot of books, but I want to see just how true that really is.

Guidelines:
– I’m only counting movies. I don’t watch too many TV shows anyway, so no sense in included them in. This is a lie. I watched many TV shows in 2011, but never kept track.
- I won’t include movies that I’ve watched before, unless I’ve forgotten enough about the movie that it would seem new to me (basically movies I watched as a kid that I’m revisiting).
- I’ve actually tried to keep the list in chronological order. I’ll organize it by month, since it would be too much work to be exact.

Grand Totals
As of December 24th 2011, I have watched 115 new movies, read 15 books, and I have finished 11 different video games. My movie total should be a lot higher if you count all the movies I’ve rewatched. Books, would be higher as well if I actually finished the ones I started. More often than not I get bored and start another book. Same with video games, but there aren’t many stories in games that can hold me very long these days. In the end I don’t think I watch a lot of movies or read a lot of books. Maybe this year was a slow year for me. My movie total for December would be much higher, but I ended up re-watching a lot of movies this month. It’s my nostalgia month I guess.

Movies:

January
- Black Swan
- Salo
- Police Story 2
- Lost in Translation
- Four Lions
- Idiocracy
- Dark City
- Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan
- Inside

Month Total: 9
Running Total: 9

February
- Groundhog Day
- Easy A
- Children of Men
- The American
- Red
- Man of Vendetta
- Let Me In
- I Saw the Devil

Month Total: 8
Running Total: 17

March
- Amélie
- True Grit (1969)
- Adjustment Bureau
- Red Hill
- Stargate
- Fab Five Documentary
- The Next Three Days
- Bank Job
- Elizabethtown

Month Total: 9
Running Total: 26

April
- Your Highness
- Vertigo
- Hanna
- Kids in America
- Unstoppable
- Bloods and Crips: Made in America
- Rio

Month Total: 7
Running Total: 33

May
- The Parking Lot Movie
- Pleasantville
- Bad Boys (tempted to leave this off the list, but I haven’t watched it in 10 years).
- What Are Dreams?
- Catch Me If You Can
- Trigun: Badlands Rumble
- Men Suddenly in Black
- Tucker and Dale vs Evil
- 13
- Shaft (2000)
- The Illusionist (Director: Sylvain Chomet)

Month Total: 11
Running Total: 44

June
- The Fighter
- Kung Fu Panda 2
- Ramona and Beezus
- Whip It
- Primer
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
- The Iceman Tapes: Confessions of a Killer
- Animal Kingdom
- Paul

Month Total: 9
Running Total: 53

July
- Cedar Rapids
- Hall Pass
- True Legend
- Super 8
- Tangled
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Rob Roy
- Rubber
- True Grit (2010)
- Be Kind, Rewind
- Kill the Irishman
- I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale
- The Man from Nowhere
- Source Code

Month Total: 14
Running Total: 67

August
- Barney’s Version
- Inside Job
- The Two Escobars
- Unknown
- Super
- Bitch Slap
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Last Night

Month Total: 8
Running Total: 75

September
- Kingpin
- X-Men: First Class
- Heckler
- Martyrs
- Drive
- Thor
- Burn After Reading
- Bridesmaids
- Bangkok K.O.

Month Total: 9
Year Total: 84

October
- What’s Your Number?
- Hackers
- Fast Five
- Horrible Bosses
- Attack the Block
- Sucker Punch
- The Cube
- Observe and Report
- Lion King
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Monsters
- Eastern Promises
- Not Another ‘Not Another’ Movie
- Hangover 2 (exactly the same as the first movie)
- The River Murders
- Captain America: The First Avenger

Month Total: 16
Running Total: 100

November
- Strangers on a Train
- Point Break
- Clueless
- City of Life and Death
- Brazil
- Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
- Immortals
- Puss in Boots
- 30 Minutes or Less
- Dumb and Dumber
- Our Idiot Brother
- Layer Cake

Month Total: 12
Running Total: 112

December
- King of Chinatown
- Knuckle
- The Killing
- The Adventures of Tin Tin

Games:

January
- Mass Effect 1
- Mass Effect 2
- Black Ops

March
- Marvel vs Capcom 3

April
- Costume Quest

August
- Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes

September
- Gears of War 1
- Gears of War 2

October
- Gears of War 3 (I actually beat those 3 games in a week)

November
- Red Dead Redemption
- Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3

Books:

January
- I Heard You Paint Houses – Charles Brandt

March
- CSC Volume 1 (it’s sad that amongst all my great history textbooks, this was the only textbook I finished cover-to-cover).

April
- Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling – Bret Hart

May
- A Storm of Swords – George R. R. Martin
- Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
- CSC Volume 2

June
- Snuff – Chuck Palahniuk

July
- The Maltese Falcon – Dashiel Hammett

August
- A Feast for Crows – George R. R. Martin

September
- A Dance with Dragons – George R. R. Martin
- A History of Violence (Graphic Novel) – John Wagner (Art by Vince Locke)
- The Bronx Kill (Graphic Novel) – Peter Milligan (Art by James Romberger)
- Shortcomings (Graphic Novel) – Adrian Tomine

November
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
- Vernon God Little – DBC Pierre

Right Before I Sleep

I’m gonna read all day tomorrow. So many books I gotta finish.
I’m going to do as many chin-ups as I can. Fuck yeah, rip that bar right off my door frame.
Better yet, I’m gonna go to the gym and pound out some sets.
Gotta start eating smaller meals too. More of them, and healthier.
Not going to sleep so late anymore. I’ll sleep 30 minutes earlier a day, until I get a normal sleep schedule.

Man, meditation seems pretty cool. Need to learn how to clear my mind.
My room’s pretty messy too, might as well clear that up as well. Mental and physical clutter gone.
Fuck, if only it wasn’t 3am, I’d do it all now.
It’s ok, tomorrow. I’ll start everything tomorrow.

Man, I’m so tired, why’d I sleep at 4am last night?
So hard trying to read, my eyes hurt. I’ll play some Black Ops instead.
Ok, I’ll go to the gym after lunch. Wow, this lunch is huge.
It’s 3 already? Ok, don’t want to deal with the after-school traffic.
I’m going to take a nap, I’ll go to the gym after.
What time is it now? Blah, gym is going to be packed, I’ll go tomorrow.

10pm already? Where’d my day go?
Alright, might as well clean my room.
Blah fuck it, I can find everything here anyway.
Alright, time to call it a day.
It’s ok, tomorrow. Got all day tomorrow.